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Remembering the Good Times

When you’re stuck and feeling badly for having an addiction, it’s normal. The addiction has caused a major disruption in the flow of your life, made you mentally and physically ill, seems to have ruined family relationships and those with some of your friends. Now either you are in a rehab or attending fellowship meetings.

You may not believe it now, but you will begin to feel better. You have work to do on yourself, but not as a punishment. You had reasons for being drawn to a harmful substance. Those reasons may include: pain relief, PTSD from military service, an unconscious reaction to long-term abuse and neglect suffered as a child, trauma from a natural disaster or the likes of an automobile crash. The reasons depend on an individual’s personal experiences.

When you uncover the cause of an addiction, you may feel better, or worse for awhile. Therapy can be very beneficial in helping you deal with your feelings. In recovery you can’t push the old or recent wounds aside and expect to feel better. You have to learn to cope with them and know they don’t have to control you anymore.

As you wend your way through self discovery and that accompanies recovery, you can find activities to mitigate the intensity you feel. You don’t have to constantly work on yourself. One exercise to undertake is to write down your memories of the good times you’ve had in life. Think again if you feel you you never had any. Good memories can be as simple as going to the ice cream shop and having a chocolate sundae, buying your first skill saw, hitting a homerun in a softball or baseball game, the first time you kissed a boy or a girl—anything that made you feel good. When you start putting good memories down on paper, other ones may pop into your mind. Relish these memories. Relive them in your mind.

Remembering and writing down fond memories is important to your well being because it adds balance to your recovery process. You may have survived a tornado or malnutrition, and you are currently surviving an addiction. Let that sink in—you are surviving an addiction! Bravo! Keep writing.

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”—Jimmy Dean

Serenity Oaks provides an intensive 5 week program to support your sobriety and recovery from addiction. We provide medical support, detox, and other help such as building life skills. Through individualized programs we help you move forward in recovery. Call us to find out how we can help you get started: 844-396-8526.